{"id":377253,"date":"2026-10-19T21:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377253\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T21:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T21:20:11","slug":"free-childcare-for-2-year-olds-is-expanding-in-nyc-next-year-heres-where","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377253\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Childcare for 2-Year-Olds Is Expanding in NYC Next Year. Here’s Where."},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published<\/a>\u00a0by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at\u00a0ckbe.at\/newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As New York City\u2019s free childcare program is on track to reach 12,000 2-year-olds next year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul revealed Monday which new neighborhoods will get the program.<\/p>\n

The expansion will bring the program to 22 of the city\u2019s 32 school districts, including all of the Bronx and Staten Island, after that borough had been left out of this year\u2019s inaugural 2,000 seats<\/a>. Mamdani has pledged to expand the program citywide for all 2-year-olds who need it by the end of his first term, though Hochul has only committed funding for the first two years.<\/p>\n

Hochul committed $73 million to the program this year and plans to spend $425 million next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Co-op City in the Bronx to Staten Island\u2019s South Shore, we\u2019re bringing 2-K to every borough and making New York City more affordable for working people,\u201d Mamdani said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Toddlers who turn 2 in 2027 will be eligible to participate in next year\u2019s program. Officials didn\u2019t immediately provide a breakdown of how many seats will be available in each of the new districts. Officials did not promise that every eligible student in the covered districts would get a seat, but a Mamdani spokesperson said the goal is to reach as many families as possible.<\/p>\n

More than 5,000 families applied<\/a> for the 2,000 seats that opened this year, a sign of unmet demand for the program, officials said.<\/p>\n

Unlike the city\u2019s free programs for 3- and 4-year-olds, the city funds most 2-K programs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., year-round<\/a>. For participating families, that can mean savings of more than $20,000 a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how we deliver real relief for working families, and make sure our kids get the best possible start in life,\u201d Hochul said in a statement.<\/p>\n

(Some families, however, need care outside of traditional weekday hours and rely on state-funded childcare vouchers. Earlier this month, Mamdani announced plans to enroll about 10,000 kids from a waitlist that had grown to 30,000.)<\/p>\n

To expand 2-K next year, city officials said they will begin reaching out this week to childcare providers in the covered districts who already receive funding from the city to operate 3-K and prekindergarten programs to gauge their interest in opening 2-K seats.<\/p>\n

Some, however, may be wary. Many private childcare operators who contract with the city to run 2-K, 3-K and prekindergarten programs said they faced crippling delays in getting their city reimbursements this year<\/a> \u2014 a longstanding problem some providers said grew worse this year.<\/p>\n

Mamdani pledged an all-government effort<\/a> to expedite the approval of new contracts and promised to fill hundreds of staffing vacancies in the Education Department\u2019s early childhood education division.<\/p>\n

The 2-K program in its first year relied mostly on family providers who run small childcare programs from their homes, though some larger childcare centers also participated.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the list of new districts where the program is set to expand. The districts included in this year\u2019s 2-K program \u2014 Manhattan\u2019s District 6, the Bronx\u2019s District 10, Brooklyn\u2019s Districts 18 and 23, and Queens\u2019 District 27 \u2014 will continue to have the program next year.<\/p>\n

You can find out what school district you\u2019re in using the Education Department\u2019s searchable school district map<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bronx: All districts covered (includes Districts 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)<\/p>\n

Staten Island: All of District 31 covered (the only district in Staten Island)<\/p>\n

Manhattan:<\/p>\n

School District 4:East Harlem<\/p>\n

School District 5: Central Harlem, Manhattanville \/ West Harlem, Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights \/ Sugar Hill<\/p>\n

Brooklyn:<\/p>\n

School District 16: Bedford-Stuyvesant, including Stuyvesant Heights; as well as parts of northern Crown Heights and Ocean Hill<\/p>\n

School District 17: Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Wingate, Prospect Heights, Flatbush, East Flatbush, as well as parts of Erasmus, Farragut, Rugby, Remsen Village, Ocean Hill and Brownsville<\/p>\n

School District 19: East New York, New Lots, Cypress Hills, City Line, Spring Creek, Starrett City, as well as parts of Ocean Hill, Brownsville and Canarsie<\/p>\n

School District 20: Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, as well as parts of Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Sunset Park, Kensington, Gravesend, Mapleton \/ western Midwood and western Flatbush<\/p>\n

School District 21: Coney Island, Sea Gate, Brighton Beach, Gravesend, Homecrest, Mapleton \/ Ocean Parkway, Midwood, as well as parts of Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Madison and western Flatbush<\/p>\n

School District 32: Bushwick, as well as parts of East Williamsburg and northern Bedford-Stuyvesant<\/p>\n

Queens:<\/p>\n

School District 24: Corona, including North Corona; Elmhurst, Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, Glendale, Sunnyside, Woodside, as well as parts of Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, Rego Park, Woodhaven, Forest Hills, and Long Island City<\/p>\n

School District 28: Rego Park, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Briarwood, Jamaica Hills, Jamaica, South Jamaica, Richmond Hill, South Richmond Hill, South Ozone Park, Baisley Park, Rochdale Village, Springfield Gardens, as well as parts of Kew Gardens Hills, Hillcrest, St. Albans, Glendale, Corona, and Elmhurst<\/p>\n

School District 29: Queens Village, Cambria Heights, Hollis, St. Albans, Laurelton, Rosedale, Springfield Gardens, Brookville, portions of Bellerose, Jamaica Estates, Holliswood, Hillcrest, Jamaica Hills, Jamaica, and South Jamaica<\/p>\n

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published\u00a0by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at\u00a0ckbe.at\/newsletters. As New York City\u2019s free childcare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,4337,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-377253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-department-of-education","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}